[In case you are balking at the amount of text below, here's a quick summary: All of our new shirts are full color, 100% cotton Direct to Garment shirts that we print ourselves. We are offering a numberofnewdesigns as well as some oldfavorites we haven't offered for a while. We are also offering 11" x 14" fine art prints of pretty much any Megatokyo comic you want as well as the Broken Miho drawing. We are also running a big sale where most products (including new ones) are on sale. On top of this sale price, you can take an extra 10% off the sale price on shirts and hoodies if you use coupon code "G34R" when you order (Good through December 12th). Also, Megatokyo posters are $12.50 each or two for $22, and Megatokyo button sets are two for $10.]

Now for the long version.

One of the core philosophies behind MegaGear is that we like to make and sell stuff we might want ourselves. That's been a little difficult to do with t-shirts because the color limitations of screen printing have prevented us from offering the detailed, full color shirts we've wanted. That situation changed earlier this year when we acquired the other new 'baby' in our family, a Direct to Garment printer. A DTG Printer is basically just a big inkjet printer that has been heavily modified to print directly on t-shirts. The technology has been around for a while but has evolved over the past few years to the point that it has become a viable production choice.

The main advantages to DTG printing is that you can print full color images on normal, 100% cotton t-shirts, including dark/black shirts. The detail and quality of the output is actually pretty impressive. There was a bit of a learning curve (let's not talk about head alignment, shall we?), but a few months ago we felt we were ready to start offering the shirts in our store. Testing included multiple washes to test the durability the shirts which by their very nature they are not quite as durable as screen printing inks over the long term. They will stand up just fine if you take reasonably good care of them. I've been wearing and watching a number of shirts for several months now and they are holding up well. [Care note: just like screenprinted shirts, you should turn them inside out when washing them and use the gentle cycle if you want any shirt to last a long time. Note that *I* am not doing this, because i am testing them to worst case washing conditions :P]

The other advantage to DTG printing is that all shirts are printed on demand, which means i can experiment with shirt designs without having to worry about having a big inventory of shirts no one wants if the design is a real dud (This is liberating, trust me). Another advantage is i can print designs on tshirts, ladies t's, hoodies, etc. This means that we can offer many of our designs in both ladies t's and hoodies which is something we could not really do before.

Another product I put a lot of research into also involves a high end inkjet printer: Fine Art prints. It's actually rather amazing to see the quality output these printers are capable of producing these days. Since there is a lot of detail i draw that most of you never get to see (because of the limitations of web resolution or the print size of the books) I've always wanted to offer fine art prints so people might see it. Since my work is generally pencil and greyscale, it was important to find a printer that could accurately print subtle pencil work. After much research I finally chose the HP B9180 which is a pigment-based ink printer and Moab Entrada Rag Bright 190 Fine Art Paper. Note that both paper and inks are archival, with the HP Vivera inks being tested to be fade resistant for up to 200 years.

Our first Fine Art Print offerings in the MegaGear store are prints of any Megatokyo comic you wish (with a few limitations), printed, signed, dated and slipped into an archival plastic sleeve with an acid free backer board. I'm also offering a print of the updated version of the original Broken Miho drawing i did back in 2002, also signed and dated. More to come as i work on making availible some of my COPIC colored works.

Ok, that's enough of that. Right now, it's snowing outside my window, i have a little something i'm trying to finish for Applegeeks, and then it's back to work on the Megatokyo comic. Thank you, as always, for your support.

< Dom >

I saw the day when all of God's children sang with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

It's a big day for history - we'll see how the next hundred days go for the President. Tough times all around, and while the words are important, the actions will define everything.